The Rise of the Science Populists with Sam Gregson and Tim Henke

In this interview episode, we are joined by physicists Sam Gregson ( Bad Boy of Science YouTube channel) and Tim Henke to examine the rise of science populism : a style of science communication that borrows the tactics of political populism, including grievance narratives, institutional distrust, and conspiratorial framing, while presenting its advocates as lone truth-tellers battling a corrupt academic elite. We discuss how DTG favourites like Sabine Hossenfelder and Eric Weinstein, as well as fresh new faces Brian Keating and Avi Loeb, deploy selective truths about physics to fuel self-aggrandising, anti-expert narratives. Along the way, we also cover stuff like why “physics hasn’t progressed in 50 years”, cranks are useful props for populist arguments, and the strange obsession with Nobel Prizes. If you are interested in guru dynamics, science communication, and physics crankery, this might be an episode for you. Links Bad Boy of Science (Sam Gregson) Tim's Profile Website Bad Boy of Science – The Rise of Physics Populisers Theories of Everything (Kurt Jaimungal) Losing the Nobel Prize – Brian Keating Into the Impossible (Brian Keating) Sabine Hossenfelder’s YouTube Channel The Portal (Eric Weinstein) The Galileo Project (Avi Loeb) Sean Carroll – Mindscape / Preposterous Universe Not Even Wrong (Peter Woit)

You can listen to The Rise of the Science Populists with Sam Gregson and Tim Henke online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Rise of the Science Populists with Sam Gregson and Tim Henke is an episode from Decoding the Gurus by Christopher Kavanagh and Matthew Browne.

This episode is 01:35:22 long.

This episode was published on Feb 9, 2026.

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